Russia Agrees To US Request To Shut Down AllofMP3.com

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1. Herman
   

   November 28th, 2006 at 2:15 pm

   I was looking forward to downloading some music off of the site… such good timing.

   Unfortunately there are so many more content piracy problems in Russia et al, so this is just the beginning of it all.

2. Hornswaggled
   

   November 28th, 2006 at 2:21 pm

   I used to use this service a lot over the past 2-3 years. Once they raised their prices 6 months ago I havent been back. Its unfortunate that they will be shut down, they had a great catalog.

   I have a sneaky feeling that they will open up somewhere else though, Im sure they had a backup plan about this. This was rumored to happen months ago when their site crashed, now its almost official.

3. John
   

   November 28th, 2006 at 3:02 pm

   Bummer… they had a great music model going and the US Music industry still can’t see the forest for the trees.
   Watch out iTunes, they have you in their “$1.00 a Zune” sites.

4. Florian Cervenka
   

   November 28th, 2006 at 3:28 pm

   What about taking care of child pornography first by taking servers of the net faster? Oh yeah.. there is no CP-AA.

5. Indimingle
   

   November 28th, 2006 at 3:35 pm

   It was just a matter of time until the powers-that-be would get to them. You can’t fight capitalism - even the Russians understand that!

   As of now the site is still up - and as Hornswaggled said, I think another offering will sprout up somewhere else soon!

6. Gabe
   

   November 28th, 2006 at 3:38 pm

   I hear AllOfPolonium.com is still available from the UK.

7. Jason
   

   November 28th, 2006 at 3:43 pm

   Great comments all of the above !!

   Why should this receive such priority when there is so much fraud and kiddie porn all over the net ?

   In any event, the important thing, typically, have been missed :

   1) this is not just about those guys being cheaper. with so much ‘free’ pirate matierial everywhere on the net, having a site that people would PAY for, without expensive branding (hello apple) is a very very obvious indicator or market forces at work. Namely All of MP3 operate at a price point that people were HAPPY TO PAY.

   The amount of piracy around right now, personal piracy, is down to 2 things

   1. technology makes it easy. but it did that with the 1st twin deck tape machine

   2. (and this is obvious) PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF LINING THE POCKETS OF RECORD COMPANYS AND CRUMMY ARTISTS GETTINGS RICHER OFF THE BACK OF BARELY PASSABLE MUSIC.

8. Jason
   

   November 28th, 2006 at 3:46 pm

   continued..

   if i pay 10 buck for an album, i want 10 bucks work of music. not 5 bucks work of marketing, 3 bucks overheards and 2 bucks of music.

   music lovers and artists to an extent have been ripped off for long enough

   this is purely market forces.

   shutting down something that was at the right price point will just make more people paynothing at all.

9. Say No to Crack
   

   November 28th, 2006 at 4:04 pm

   Interesting that their argument (”the company has offered to remove illegal music at the copyright holders’ requests”) is the exact same as YouTube’s argument. So when will Russia demand that we shut down YouTube because it contains copyrighted Russian material?

10. Calvin
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 4:09 pm

    All that lobbying and calling in favors in DC bought mp3.com lots of publicity, a windfall in revenue as the media continues to report on this story, and a redirect for music craving public who will return to the DarkNet for their music fix.

    What a bunch of dumb asses…

11. Calvin
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 4:09 pm

    allofmp3.com, i mean

12. Jessup
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 4:21 pm

    So what are our other choices? The site was pretty good.

13. garg
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 4:23 pm

    Maybe they should have pressurized Russia to stop assassinating people and to provide better security and services to their citizens before worrying about websites.

14. Rulepark
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 4:43 pm

    To shut down a well know site is to spawn others. U shut down 1, we have 2 mores in the waiting. Shut down 2 we have 4. Just keep on regenerating…

15. ginchy
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 5:20 pm

    The Russian government would also like to assure everyone that gunning down investigative journalists is still perfectly acceptable behavior.

16. Kurt
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 6:39 pm

    You know, excellent points all around. However, I do have one issue. I don’t want to be seen as jumping on the Apple band-wagon here, because I’m not.

    Jason, - years ago, people were complaining because they couldn’t get inexpensive albums on the Internet except through places like Amazon. People wanted to download their songs one at a time instead of having to buy a whole album. You complain about getting 3 bucks worth of music… well Apple gives you 3 bucks worth of music if that’s what you want.

    There are many things I may not like about Apple (although I do use a macintosh in addition to three PCs — all of which I own), but their music distribution model is not one of them. It’s not as good as I would like it to be but it’s an evolutionary leap from what was there before. I don’t think it’s fair to complain about Apple being expensive since in actuality they’re quite inexpensive if you just want three bucks worth of music, as you put it.

17. David Mackey
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 6:43 pm

    Pretty interesting. Will be interested to see how this plays out in the upcoming weeks.

18. Ryan W.
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 6:47 pm

    @Kurt and Jason

    It doesn’t matter if you pay by the album or by the song, you’re still paying for things like marketing and overhead. However, this is not only true for music. It’s true for just about everything. Unless you buy your products from some guy who makes it all himself and doesn’t pay rent, you pay overhead, marketing, transportation, profit, etc on every product or service you buy. Of course, that’s not to say that the percentages aren’t screwed up in this case.

    Also, I found this statement funny:

    PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF LINING THE POCKETS OF RECORD COMPANYS AND CRUMMY ARTISTS GETTINGS RICHER OFF THE BACK OF BARELY PASSABLE MUSIC.

    They’re only getting rich off of that barely passable music if PEOPLE BUY IT. How can people complain about the crummy quality of today’s music if they’re buying it? It’s not like we have a shortage of quality music. We just have a shortage in the Top 40 category.

19. Florian Cervenka
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 6:54 pm

    @Kurt

    What itunes has to offer is very nice but there is a big problem with it: you get a free gift with every purchase called DRM. I for instance would not want to be forced to buy an mp3-player that supports DRM but rather use my mobile phone (includes SD-card reader).

    allofmp3 was the first time in ages that I have purchased music.
    Seems that someone doesn’t want me to spend my money. At least now I can afford a faster connection to the internet so I can download more and faster.

20. lemon obrien
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 7:12 pm

    http://www.tamago.us

21. Ryan
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 7:33 pm

    I love AllofMP3 and am bummed that they are getting shut down. I sometimes use iTunes when AllofMP3 doesn’t have the song I want, but buying all of the music I want on iTunes is expensive and I can’t afford that.

22. teleks
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 8:54 pm

    Sorry to insert a political comment, but everybody who happily repeats the idiocy that the (English-language) press prints about assassinations at the hands of the Russian government is… not doing their own thinking. Research a little bit, find out who the journalist was, who she was irritating (certainly not the Kremlin) and, most of all, who BENEFITED from her death (again, nobody in the government). So, don’t repeat what is obvious propaganda for the stupid masses. Read exile.ru if you want serious analysis (they had an in-depth article on the killing).

23. Darren
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 1:25 am

    what has this story and serval others got to do with startups and alike?

    http://www.techcrunch.com/about-techcrunch/

    not having a go but I can go to plenty of other sites and get this news and what I love about techcrunch is startup stuff.

24. Chris
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 1:52 am

    I refuse to use iTunes because I don’t want my music locked in to one system. What happens if Apple suddenly goes under? Slim chance of that happening but it could.
    I also don’t like that I can’t download it again if I have a system crash. Yes I do backups but there’s always a worse case scenario. I have catalogued all my CDs and Vinyl. There’s a high chance I can claim those back on insurance. Digital downloads? I somehow doubt you’d be able to claim money on insurance for them if your computer is destroyed in a fire. However, you did pay for them….

25. Rich
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 2:21 am

    I agree with the above there are bigger issues the governements should be addressing.

26. Glenn
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 2:23 am

    Is this a hoax, have searched the USTR website for allofmp3 notices, only one comes up?

27. V
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 2:32 am

    1. probably allofmp3 will earn much more money before it shuts down, than it would have earned without these rumors. Probably many of you downloaded more music from them in the past weeks than usual, just because you don’t want to miss the opportunity.

    2. I get pretty angry that the agreement mentions allofmp3.com under internet piracy. This site is LEGAL according to actual Russian law. For this reason, it will infringe the law after june, and the Russian government will force it to adopt (Probably not to shut down.) after it changed the law, but today who blames allofmp3 is a liar.

    2.1 I would be really surprised if they would shut down. First, the most problematic thing is to get a market share, they already have it. If they are just a little bit cheaper then iTunes is, you will use them, and and the format of downloaded music is an other question. Secondly, I can easily imagine, that Russian IP laz won’t be as strong as US’ is, so allofmp3 will be able to survive easily. The main question is, wheather we will use the easily distributable format (mp3) or not.

    3. without the marketing spending of companies, you would not be aware of the music you are downloading, and even if their marketing budget is higher than optimal, YOU DO PREFER a positive marketing budget, and I am not sure weather these spendings are compensated by actual Russian IP law.

28. Herman
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 4:56 am

    As for Glenn’s remark that it can’t be found on the ustr.govv website: the document is a PDF scan, and tehrefor not indexed in their search engine

    http://www.ustr.gov/World_Regi.....x.html?ht=

    http://www.ustr.gov/assets/Wor....._10011.pdf

29. Jessica
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 6:03 am

    I’ve tried to use allofmp3 twice in the last two days. The site’s still up, but you can’t purchase anything–it says that ordering is “temporarily disabled.” Could it already be history?

30. fredblotnic
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 6:37 am

    Well this was one of the last sites that didn’t cram DRMed music down your throat. why cant i get music legally without DRM. Being a linux user means non of it will work legally on my PC. i will stop buying music all together now. Hey RIAA hear that people other than windows users want to legally buy music so quit DRMing it! until the illegal activities like kiddie porn make MPAA and RIAA lose money they wont really give a crap.

31. Curbob
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 7:11 am

    AllofMp3.com may have stopped the orders, but I read that their sister site http://www.alltunes.com is working and are suppose to use your credits from allofMp3.com

    I haven’t tried it yet, but thats what someone mentioned on their blog

32. Curbob
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 7:21 am

    i just tried alltunes.com with my allofmp3 login, it worked and i was able to download music (from the US)

33. Chris Carey
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 7:45 am

    Who wants to bet those AllofMp3 servers get moved to another country?

34. Rajeev
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 8:09 am

    Cool News for music lovers,
    Hope now they will give a better deal to the artists also.

35. Robert
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 9:01 am

    O well, the only web page where i actually will pay for music will shut down. Itl save me money i guess, thank god for free music.

    If the music is good il buy the album in a store, if its crap il delete it. Most music is crap!

36. mark
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 10:11 am

    Goodbye AllofMP3, hello Kazza, torrent trackers and easynews!

37. Jason
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 10:39 am

    What a joke. It couldn’t be more obvious that this is part of the entertainment industry’s lobby and a bunch of out of touch geezers passing legislation. There are much greater issues that should dictate Russia’s involvement in the WTO. How ’bout human rights to start?

38. Robin
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 10:47 am

    I agree (and hope!) that as one door closes then another one opens and that IF allofmp3 goes the way of the dinosaurs then something bigger & better will replace it.

    I’m with many people here in that I’m not after getting artists ripped off, it’s about getting value for money and fair rights to use the music you purchase. I mean, imagine going into a Dodge showroom and buying a car only to be told what roads you can/cannot drive on!

    The big problem is that when it’s the RIAA, MPAA or whoever versus the listening public, the fat cat music & movie companies will always win. Why? Because they’re organized where we are just millions of ‘individuals’. If the millions of people who use sites like allofmp3, who want value for money and who want frair use rights, were able to unite somehow then they’d be a force to be reckoned with and could wipe that smug smile off the faces of these extortionists…..

    ….oooeerrrr, started to rant a bit there. Better put the soapbox away =;o)

39. ran
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 12:16 pm

    Robin, do I hear a TechCrunch-wide boycot of RIAA/MPAA brewing? If you organize it, count me in.

40. Darrel
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 1:57 pm

    For those asking ‘what’s the alternative’ or ‘I won’t support DRMed iTunes’ the next-best answer is emusic:

    http://www.emusic.com

    Cheap ($.25 a song) and DRM free. The only drawback is that their catalog isn’t as big on the popular stuff (though it’s steadily increasing month by month).

    I really think eMusic has hit the sweet-spot in terms of pricing and giving the consumer what they want. They really deserve more support.

41. Chromeronin
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 5:03 pm

    I found out about allofmp3 from an article concerning it’s legality. I used to get a few songs from iTunes but I am from New Zeland, and iTunes don’t have a site here, so I was using a back door to allow my paypal account to pay my iTunes bill.
    I also had to burn every track to CD, then rip it back so I could use it where I wanted to. What a pain in the ass.
    I switched to allofmp3 immediately because they primarily offered the downloads in whatever format you liked at what ever bitrate you liked. That it was cents per song was only a bonus, I would have paid iTunes prices for the same service.
    The downloading interface wasn’t great, but it worked on all my PC’s. Also there were a few free downloading plugins that interfaced with amarok, my preferred media player. If this were iTunes, they would have tried to shut down any software that made any other media player work by changing their application api’s like they have several times in the last two years to break third party apps.

    I want my music that I have paid for to belong to me, not apple or microsoft. I don’t want their advertising, and I don’t want their media players or products, I want to get the music I like to listen to, whenever I want, and on whatever device I own.

42. David G
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 6:20 pm

    “The government will be expected to begin complying by June 1, 2007.”

    ha - washington-time, meet internet-time - v. funny - I wonder how many cd’s you can rip between now and then ???

43. Eric H
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 8:26 pm

    Check this site….it will come really soon….music songs between 1 to 98c, price is fixed by the artist, you can pay by credit card (yes!!! even for 10c) no gimmicks…no subscription, no minimal amount will be requiered….just a new model….and if you want to get music for free you can….you may need to watch an ad (sponsored song) and that’s it..also music fan can resell their songs on their own website by putting an IZ button (artist still get paid and fan get a %).will start beginning of 2007 with Indie artists in the US but will extend fast..

44. Eric H
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 8:30 pm

    Sorry i was not mentioning the website is http://www.IndieZone.com

45. Steve M
    

    December 9th, 2006 at 6:30 am

    Talking of moving servers to other countries an so on, why don’t they move to sealand - that small island that was granted its own rights some time ago - the same island whose postal address is somewhere in essex, uk. OK, they may still come under the UK’s jurisdiction in some odd way but the UK just lets them get on with it - even fire upon any approaching government/military vehicle if it doesn’t have authorisation. This same establishment caused a US Navy ship to about-turn some months ago. Sealand also holds most of the pirate radio stations this sie of the persian gulf.

46. cbmeeks
    

    December 28th, 2006 at 3:58 am

    I think it’s funny how the Russian government was “looking for a way to shut them down”.

    Yeah right. wink wink.

    I’m sure allofmp3 pays them a hefty kickback to stay “legal”. And if the Russian government wanted to shut them down they would knock on their door and beat them in the head with hammers. (anyone remember that spammer?)

    http://www.codershangout.com

47. Duncan
    

    January 9th, 2007 at 4:56 am

    Hi everyone. Have been reading these posts these last few hours and as like many of us, having trouble purchasing music. I have read about XROST and thought great idea but it was too good to be true…me thinks…please prove me wrong.

    Heres the problem: Hi,

    I have signed up to Xrost this evening however I live in Australia and i am finding it difficult to pay by Visa credit card, as it requires a US or European postal address. Is there any other way i can pay for a card?

    I would appreciate ANY help…no answer is too silly.

    Thanks
    Duncan

48. Josh
    

    January 11th, 2007 at 12:29 pm

    So not to rain on everyone’s “I just don’t want to pay more than I value the music” parade, but I think the point everyone is missing is that you are buying stolen goods. It isn’t about what the right price is. You might as well steal it yourself and cut out the middleman.

    I have an small indie band, with releases on several small labels in the USA and the UK, with distribution in Norht America, Europe and Asia. Still, I have no illusions of making a living on my music. But allofmp3.com sells my music, and I haven’t seen a penny. My main label has tried to talk with them and (surprise!) heard nothing.

    Personally, I am anti-DRM. I use emusic, not iTunes (though you can by my music on iTunes). I would love to see major labels come crashing down and the way music is distributed and artists paid totally change. That, however, doesn’t justify stealing from the label and the artist.

    Someone used a car analogy in a previous comment: “I mean, imagine going into a Dodge showroom and buying a car only to be told what roads you can/cannot drive on!” How about this: imagine going into a Dodge showroom, deciding you don’t want to pay the $25,000 price tag, so you go to a car thief and buy a stolen one for $5,000, because you feel that is a fairer cost. You just don’t want to pay for marketing and overhead.

    So the what people are really saying is: “I’d rather pay a thief pennies than the real owner dollars”.

49. Duncan
    

    February 9th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

    Does anyone know the website which looks very similar to the allofmp3.com site? Some thought this site was made buy the same people who made allofmp3. thanks

50. francis atsilla
    

    February 13th, 2007 at 11:09 am

    i wan u to sen me a small mp3 in this box
    p.o.box kf 249
    koforidua_e/r
    ghana_w/a

51. prince amoh
    

    February 13th, 2007 at 11:11 am

    i wan u to sen me a small mp3 in this box
    p.o.box kf 1160
    koforidua_e/r
    ghana_w/a

52. Mark Madsen
    

    February 16th, 2007 at 1:05 am

    AllofMP3 is still doing well. I tried out the Xrost service and it works as advertised. At least my Visa card still functions and I have a balance at AllofMP3…

53. Mark Madsen
    

    February 16th, 2007 at 1:10 am

    Josh,

    That’s an interesting comment about your label conteacting them. Can you provide any more information about what transpired, the label, etc.? The story so far has been that the labels are refusing so take payment of commissions because that would give legitimacy to AllofMP3 and set a precedent. I’d hate to think that what you said is true and they’re screwing the labels that would work with them.

    Mark

54. Tim
    

    February 18th, 2007 at 4:10 am

    ON Feb 18, I can not see options to refill via Xrost.

55. Duncan
    

    February 20th, 2007 at 4:20 am

    I assume noone knows the affiliated site to allofmp3 that looks very similar

    And tim, Xrost has been down for weeks now. In future you should read my reply

56. silas quarcoo
    

    February 23rd, 2007 at 9:46 am

    please i want you to send me a small mp3 in this box assfollows silas quarcoo p.o.box kf 51 koforidua e_r GHANA w/a

57. g
    

    March 3rd, 2007 at 4:47 am

    So, are we sol if there is still a balance on allofmp3.com?

58. vvk
    

    March 8th, 2007 at 8:38 pm

    can anyone help me out with a website that is like and as cheap as allofmp3.com